Take Me Away
by Crunch
Summary: "The realization hits like a sour punch to the stomach. . . He's just slept with his best friend's mother." R/R.


Take Me Away~ by Crunch  
  
Disclaimer: Oh honestly, If I did own them, would Disney care?  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Cowboy take me away,  
  
Fly this girl as high as you can  
  
Into the wild blue  
  
Set me free, oh, I pray  
  
Closer to heaven above, and closer to you.  
  
~*~  
  
Mrs. Jacobs is making chicken soup for tomorrow's dinner when Jack comes knocking. Mayer is already in bed, his ruined arm propped on a homemade pillow, a touch of whisky on his breath to numb the pain. He's a good man, but he's tired; sick with worry for the job, the children, the food on his table. He has so many worries these days.  
  
Les has been in bed for ages, full of milk and humming a tune she didn't recognize, even as he drifted off. He's still young enough to sleep well at nights- the cold doesn't bother him so much like it does his mother; it doesn't seep between his joints and send frosty needles down an aching back. She envies him.  
  
David joined his little brother an hour or so ago, and now they're wrapped together in the quilt his mother stitched by the light of the moon when their kerosene ran out, just after her oldest was born. Sometimes she'd stitch by his crib, pieced together from spare factory flotsam his father hammered together. She'd sew until her eyes were thin and hard and leaky, in and out, threading the needle with cramped and peeling fingers, then she'd pause to stroke David's smooth cheek while he slept. Sometimes she still does that.  
  
Sarah was the last one to bed. She stayed up pounding flour and scrubbing the wash by candlelight, because her father says that electricity is money, and money doesn't grow on trees. Once, Mrs. Jacobs replied that it didn't matter, because there were no trees around the apartment anyhow. Her husband only smiled.  
  
But Sarah has work at the factory and washing to do the next morning, so she left her mother peeling carrots and plucking the scrawny yellow chicken she'd traded for a quilt at the market. That was long ago, and Mrs. Jacobs is still peeling and plucking when there's a knock at the door.  
  
She considers waking Mayer, but doubts that he'd stir. The bottle of whisky was drained considerably by the time he'd drifted off. And besides, it's late. Not that he has work tomorrow.  
  
Still holding the paring knife in weary hands bathed in chicken slop, Mrs. Jacob's edges towards the door. "Who is it?" She whispers hoarsely in a wilting Polish accent.  
  
"'S'me, Jack." His accent grinds through the woodwork. "I jus' wanted ta leave Les n' Sarah's tickets fah da ralley tomorrow." She opens the door before he's done speaking.  
  
"Come in." Mrs. Jacob's whispers, tucking a wayward strand of blonde and gray into her bun. She shouldn't have opened the door. She knows this. It's far too late, and her children have work tomorrow, even if her husband doesn't. But she so wants the company, so she ushers Jack inside.  
  
"You boys have been working so hard lately!" She keeps her voice low and straightens her apron, turning her back on the cooking. Jack glances hungrily towards the soup. . . he really is thin for a boy his age and breadth. . . before looking Esther in the eye. Her breath catches in her throat, and she feels like a school girl in heat.  
  
He's so pretty in the candlelight.  
  
His hair is mussed and windswept, but it shines like polished mahogany through the dirt. His eyes, deep and dark, look through her, and when he smiles- he has such a lovely smile. This must be what the younger girls feel like.  
  
"Something to eat?"  
  
"No thanks, Mrs. Jacobs. I don't wanna distoib nobody. . ."  
  
"Then perhaps we could chat?" Jack's smile dips a bit in confusion, and Mrs. Jacobs does her best to laugh breezily. "It just gets so quiet here at night. You understand?"  
  
"Yeah, I do." He really does.  
  
"Then you'll stay? Just to talk for a while?"  
  
"Yeah. . . yeah, we could talk."  
  
And they do talk. . . for almost ten minutes.  
  
When Mrs. Jacobs leans in to kiss him, Jack jumps a bit, but doesn't pull back. He may be a boy, but he's so old for his age. He knows how things are done.  
  
They make their way to the fire escape, and he helps her out the window, while she fumbles for the buttons of his collar. . .  
  
~*~  
  
Backs on the cooling roof tiles. Legs touching. Palms kissing, pressed flat against each other, fingers woven like twine.  
  
She lays her head on his chest, young and strong, heaving from the exercise. His breath spills out in heavy puffs of frost against the night sky, until she leans in to kiss him, and then she feels the breeze whisper across her bare cheeks. It's so new, it almost stings.  
  
"Where will you go?"  
  
"Whadya mean?"  
  
"When the strike is over. What will you do? Where will you go?"  
  
The muscles in his stomach bunch and tense beneath her chin, and he hovers for a moment, indecision thrumming inside of him like a livewire. Finally, he stretches his fingertips for the brochure tucked in his vest pocket, sprawled exactly where he dropped it on the moonlit slate.  
  
"I'll go heah. Santa Fe." Jack says, handing her the pamphlet racked with age lines and lint. Mrs. Jacobs takes it, but doesn't look beyond the cover. Instead, she closes her eyes and dreams of the West; sprawling yellow plains under a tangerine and copper sky, where she can run wild in bare feet and ladies trousers. No skyscrapers, no children, no watered down soup and tablespoons of coffee, no stitching and no slums. She wants it so badly, she's suffocating for it. Air instead of ceiling. Green instead of cinders. Santa Fe.  
  
"Take me with you."  
  
It's just a dream; a fantasy, and they know it. It will never happen. But he says yes anyways.  
  
"You'll take me away?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You promise me, Jack?"  
  
"Yeah, I do."  
  
She'll never leave New York.  
  
When Jack leaves, boots half laced, chestnut hair ruffled beyond recognition, shirt open, collar unbuttoned and flapping free in the breeze of a night not quite summer, the fire escape squeaks beneath him like a trod on cat. He's impossibly tall and sturdy for a boy, not built for creeping. Maybe Boots or Spot, featherweights the both of them, could have made it. But Jack pauses, fingers gripping the iron rail so tightly that his knuckles bulge like pale white bolts. He breaks to see if he's been discovered, and realizes he's peering into Sarah's window.  
  
A bloom of embarrassment creeps from his neck to his cheeks; Sarah wouldn't want to be seen in her night things. He had better move on. . . but to where? To the Lodging House? He's missed curfew, and Kloppman sleeps deeply and arthritically. He won't be disturbed to let a tardy young scoundrel into his Lodging Quarters. Best to stay here for a bit. Just a bit. Jack tells himself he'll be gone long before sun up. Gone to where. . . again, he doesn't know.  
  
He lowers himself to the iron grating and tips his head backwards, his face basking in the glow of a night sky black as India ink, studded with stars like polished glass. The Manhattan twilight is beautiful, and he does love the night time.  
  
He's just slept with his best friend's mother.  
  
The realization hits him like a sour punch to the stomach. His skin still hums with her, and he hates that. She was a good sleep though, give her that. but he can't give her anything else. . . he certainly can't give her Santa Fe. He can't even get himself away.  
  
God, he wishes someone would take him away.  
  
With a pain in his chest that throbs like an animal is clawing it's way out from the inside, and that thought in his head, Jack fades off to sleep. . .  
  
~*~  
  
"Did you sleep out there all night?"  
  
The first thing Jack realizes as he comes awake is that it's morning, and he's overslept. The butter colored daylight comes streaming through his closed eyelids, and the sounds of squabbling couples, chirping birds and wash flapping on the line means it's been daylight for an hour or more. Damn.  
  
The second thing he realizes is that Sarah is speaking to him. His stomach tied in knots and his hair still rumpled from more than one occasion, the burning guilt of last night somewhat faded, Jack looks over and smiles his patented Jack Kelly smile.  
  
"Well, I didn't want to distoib nobody."  
  
Sarah graces him with a smile. It's not a grin like his. . . it isn't sexy and it isn't dazzling. But it's real.  
  
Jack WILL leave. One day he'll leave. Make no mistake about that, Jack Kelly will hop a train to the West and never look back. One day he'll take himself away, all on his own. But maybe. . .  
  
Maybe not just yet.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Well, what say the masses? It's not kinky. . . it's angsty, see? Well, whether you're grossed or amazed. . . or somewhat indifferent. . .come one, come all, and review! Flames welcome- all the better to roast my marshmallows with. 


End file.
